There are many reasons why one should participate the midnight run. It’s a fun event taking taking place in the evening hours which guides runners through the core part of the Helsinki city center. But to be honest for me there is one reason I always consider this event when preparing my race calendar for the year: the bright colored running shirts! Thanks to their neon-bright colors, they are excellent for additional visibility during the dark winter times here in Finland. So… reason enough to give it another go at this year’s midnight run…
Route
As always the run lead through the central part of Helsinki. Starting at the Senaatintori in front of the white Tuomiokirkko participants run past the old observatory tower, through Kaivopuisto (the park where everyone meets for Vappu), across the market square, around the half-island of Katajanokka and then through the old town of Kruununhaka.
Result
I’ve done this run twice before. In 2011 I underestimated myself and had to fight my way through the dressed up fun runners. Two years later, in 2013, I returned and was joined by my sister. Due to some knee pain and open shoelaces the result then was actually slower than in 2011. So here we are again two years later for another try…
This year I assigned myself to starting group 2A (45:00-49:59). Looking at previous runs this seemed to be feasible and I hoped that at least this year I would be surrounded with runners similar to me. Already lining up in my block I could see that this would definitely be the case. Pushed/pulled by these runners the start was fairly quick. The first kilometer has a slight incline which drove my pulse rate up… and keeping a fast pace, it never really came down again. In the end I had a little bit of energy left for a final sprint… but apparently another runner had some as well as he was immediately chasing me towards the finishing line. I don’t know who won in the end, but we were both excited that we pushed each other to the end… Looking at my watch I realized that I managed to finish within 44mins 47secs! What a time!
To sum it up this was definitely another great race this year. The only disappointment I had was to see that this year’s shirt was a basic blue/purple color. Don’t get me wrong – the color itself is ok, but it is just not neon-bright like in previous years. But even with that, it was a fun race and I look forward to the next time.